The revised methodology for the Nigeria Labour Force Survey (LFS) by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has come up with new definitions of the key terms of employment, unemployment, and underemployment in the economy.
Under the old LFS framework, which has been in operation since 1982, the country’s economically active population was classified into persons within the working age bracket of 15 to 64 years, while the non-working age bracket is made up of those who are either less than 15 years or above 64 years.
In the revised 2022/2023 LFS framework released by the NBS this month, the country’s working age, which constitutes the Labour Force in the economy, includes persons in the age bracket of 15 years and above, while the non-working age, or out of Labour Force, would no longer be classified as “economically inactive population”, but persons who are less than 15 years of age.
The new framework also defines Labour Force as consisting of employed people who work for pay or profit, while the unemployed are those without employment and are seeking and available for employment.
Under the revised framework, all forms of work are productive and contribute to the economy, while persons outside labour force may be engaged in other forms of work, including children who may be engaged in work, including those in child labour.
The framework recognises persons who put in between one and 19 hours, 20 to 39 hours, or more than 40 hours of work per week as being employed, even when they are temporarily not available to work.
Also, persons who put in either between one and 19 hours of work per week or between 20 and 39 hours of work per week, are considered under-employed if they are willing and available to work more hours.
Those considered unemployed are those not employed, but are searching and available for work.
Work is defined under the new framework as all compulsory productive activities performed, whether paid or unpaid, to produce goods and services for others, while employment is defined as “work for pay or profit”.
Other forms of unpaid work include own-use production work, volunteer work involving non-compulsory activities performed without pay to produce goods and services for others, and unpaid trainee work, which are activities to produce goods and services for others without pay in order to acquire workplace experience or skills.
To be considered employed, the framework says the individual must put in a minimum of 40 hours of work per week, while those considered under-employed are those who have put in between 20 to 39 hours of work per week.
Those in the unemployed category were persons who either put in between one and 19 hours of work per week, or not employed to work, despite searching for and being available for employment.
To be considered unemployed, the old methodology says a person must have worked below 20 hours or did not work at all even when the person was searching and available to work in the reference week, whereas the new methodology says a person is considered unemployed if he or she is not in any employment, actively searching and available for work.
Under-employed persons under the old methodology were persons who worked for between 20 and 39 hours a week, as against the new methodology which says persons considered under-employed are those who work for between one and 39 hours a week, are willing and available to do more work.
Remuneration for work done could be in cash or in kind; payable directly to the person who performed the work or indirectly to a member of his household or family, including family workers collaborating in the family business.
In comparison, whereas the old methodology for collecting information for the LFS made provision for a period of a cross-sectional survey, the new methodology provides for continuous surveys throughout the year.
In terms of survey sample size, whereas the old methodology focussed on 33,300 households per quarter, the new methodology has a sample size of 35,520 households spread across 12 months of the year.
Again, while the previous methodology used 15 to 21 days for data collection, the new methodology provides for the collection of data every week, from Wednesday to Sunday.
Under the old methodology, whereas employment in agriculture was recorded as employed if the hourly threshold was met, the new methodology makes a distinction between commercial and subsistence agriculture.
On reporting and disaggregation, whereas the old methodology adopted quarterly exercise with State-level disaggregation, the new methodology adopts quarterly reporting with national disaggregation, then full-year reporting with State-level disaggregations.
The new framework follows a review conducted by the NBS in collaboration with the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) based on the experiences from other countries like Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Namibia, Tunisia, Ecuador, Peru, Philippines, Vietnam, Kyrgyz Republic, and Moldova.
The NBS disclosed that data collection for the 2022/2023 Nigeria LFS covering the fourth quarter reporting period between October 19, 2022 and January 22, 2023, was currently ongoing.
The report is expected to be published before the end of May 2023.
